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Publication Account
Date 1995
Event ID 1016696
Category Descriptive Accounts
Type Publication Account
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/1016696
One of the six lighthouses designed and built by Robert Stevenson with his son Alan between 1830 and 1833, and the most no rtherly lighthouse on the mainland of Scotland. Here a short circular tower stands on a semicircular base, with a parapet corbelled out below the light, and a circular, diamond-paned lantern with a domed top. Beside the tower are the low, white-washed blocks of the keepers' houses. A feature of the Stevenson family's work for the Northern Lighthouse Board was the attention they paid to the welfare of the lightkeepers, as well their engineering skills in providing the best possible lights. These were sometimes constructed on the most inaccessible rocks, such as the Pentland Skerries where two tall towers and a keeper's cottage were completed in 1794. Every year, the member of the family who was Engineer to the Board made a trip round Scotland to visit all the lights, even those on remote rocks or islands. Sir WaIter Scott sailed on the Lighthouse Yacht in 1814 and kept a journal of his voyage, with vivid descriptions of Cape Wrath, the dangerous currents in the 'rentland Firth, and landing on the Pentland Skerries.
Information from ‘Exploring Scotland’s Heritage: The Highlands’, (1995).
